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TWO-AXIS "STUPID/EVIL" POLITICAL CHART REPRESENTS MAJOR ADVANCE IN TWO-AXIS POLITICAL CHART TECHNOLOGY
By Belarius
Newsvine
August 23, 2007
[INSET CAPTION: The revolutionary Stupid/Evil Chart takes the radical step of calibrating its center to represent a fictional person who is both good and smart. Any movement away from 0,0 indicated an increase in either Evil or Stupidity.]
[INSET CAPTION: Various important figures in American and world politics, rated according to the Stupid/Evil Chart.]
Psychologists and economists turned the field of political science on its ear today when the development of the new Stupid/Evil two-axis political chart was announced in an Internet press release. The chart can be used to describe both individuals and governments in terms of how stupid and how evil they are, as well as capturing the specific ways in which stupidity and evil manifest.
"I think all political philosophies can be rated on (1) How stupid they are and (2) How evil they are," said celebrated economist C.B. François, who headed the panel of experts responsible for the chart. He went on to dismiss the work of other political metrics, such as the controversial Political Compass. "You'd have more success if you assumed that all politicians are evil and stupid, and that there are different flavors of evil and stupid."
MAPPING HUMAN NATURE
The core assumption of the Stupid/Evil Chart is that good, intelligent people have no role in politics. Voters, regardless of their normal intelligence or good nature, fall into ideological traps that force them to support stupid and/or evil policies. Politicians, on the other hand, are generally profoundly stupid and/or evil. The only question is how stupid/evil?
A hypothetically Good/Smart person falls on the point (0,0) on the Stupid/Evil Chart, though it is humanly impossible to lie exactly at this intercept. Any movement away from 0 along the X-axis represents a drop in intelligence, while any movement away from 0 along the Y-axis represents a drop in morality.
THE STUPID AXIS
Political stupidity generally takes two forms: not enough government and too much government. At the extreme left, represented by negative X values, are the Bureaucialists, tax-and-spend hive minds who believe that no problem is so big that it can't be solved (or at least hidden from view) by a bigger bureaucracy. The extreme right, represented by positive X values, are the Aynarchists, anarcho-nomads who live off the grid, taking only powerful firearms and the complete works of Ayn Rand with them into the uncharted wilderness known as the "free market."
American politics tends more toward the Stupid(+) range, with its support for globalization and its insistence that multinational insurance corporations can be safeguarded with the task of keeping the country alive. Some programs, such Most Children Not Left Behind and the Farm Aid For High-Fructose Corn Syrup bill, drag America back toward center slightly. The monetary power of corporations is said by some to have moved the entire world toward the Aynarchist extreme (as seen in the massive worldwide proliferation of small arms), though many examples of "functioning" Bureaucialist governments still exist.
THE EVIL AXIS
Political evil follows a similar pattern: too much intolerance by some, or not enough intolerance by others. Positive Y values tend toward the extreme Diablorthodox, who believe that only their way of life is morally defensible and use belligerence, deception, and force to impose that way of life on others. Negative Y values, on the other hand, represent a total lack of moral objectivity, with extreme cases falling among the Beelzapologists, who argue that good and evil don't exist, and that all acts are morally equivalent.
Mainstream American politics also tends toward the Evil(+) range, with politicians winning re-election on platforms that involve debating not whether to kill foreigners, but how many to kill. The prohibition of drugs and the so-called "War on Porn" also represent Diablorthodox tendencies. America has a sizable Beelzapologist fringe, however, who (we are told) want the terrorists to win, think drugs are good, and support an animal-human-marriage amendment to the Constitution. America's level of tolerance has become a polarizing issue in recent years, with an increasing percentage of America asserting that we should kill no foreigners.
A BRIGHT FUTURE
In the coming months, researchers hope to identify the perfect human being who can calibrate this scale. Once this (strictly theoretical) person can be described, researchers hope to be able to position others more accurately within the space. The closest historical candidate thus far, one Jesus of Nazareth, was discovered to be ever-so-overly-tolerant according to the modern political field.
"One of our difficulties is that there doesn't appear to be a limit on stupidity or evil," said psychologist G.J. Gregory, a contributor to the project. "Unlike other two-axis political charts, we don't assume that a 'maximum score' is possible." Nevertheless Gregory anticipates that a functional maximum for humans can be estimated given a particular lifespan, but this ceiling wouldn't apply to immortals, such as Santa (an off-the-chart Bureaucialist) or Abaddon (off-the-chart Dialorthodox).